CASTRIMOENIUM
Italy.
A municipium near
Marino on the N slope of the crater that encloses Lago
d'Albano, perhaps a resettlement of the site of the ancient
Latins called Munienses, which had disappeared before
Pliny's time. It flourished from the time of Augustus to
that of Marcus Aurelius, as the epigraphical record
shows; it is mentioned only by Pliny (
HN 3.69) and the
Liber coloniarum (233). Finds in the vicinity range from
a prehistoric necropolis to a number of fine Roman
villas, notably that of Q. Volconius Pollio excavated in
1884, sculptures from which are now in the Museo delle
Terme and the Vatican (Braccio Nuovo), but nothing of
the ancient town is visible today.
Below the site, toward the floor of the campagna, are
great quarries of peperino (lapis albanus), both ancient
and modern.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
R. Lanciani,
BullComm 12 (1884)
141-71; T. Ashby,
PBSR 4 (1907) 147-53; G. & F.
Tomassetti,
La campagna romana 4 (1926) 173-279.
L. RICHARDSON, JR.
